Leather Jackets

Swedish-born designer Johan Lindeberg took a bonafide life crisis that would send lesser men into a rock-bottom bender, absorbed its impact, and redirected its power into something positive: He founded BLK DNM, a clothing brand with New York City in its veins and dirt under its nails that, being the culmination of Lindeberg’s years of industry experience, feels like a time-tested authority for best-in-class leather jackets, despite its mere four years on Earth.

Keep reading to hear how he did it, how he bled in a castle, how he’s anti-punk, how jeans are like wine, and why he’s a fan of Hillary Clinton.

(Did we mention he also started taking photos only four years ago, and now spends his spare time photographing women like Gisele Bündchen, Kenza Fourati, Anja Rubik and Arizona Muse? Click through to see our favorites from Lindeberg’s rapidly growing photo oeuvre, too.)

We’re counting down the crucial pre-Christmas shopping days with a series called Gifted Givers, in which friends old and new share their thoughts on stylishly spirited giving and receiving.

It’s one of our favorite Nordstrom success stories: Men’s Shop Fashion Director Jorge Valls started in the mail room and worked his way into the high-style world of buying and presenting the best looks for our stores and website. Should you assume, however, that his brain is dedicated solely to suits and boots, we’d have to point out that he’s also an expert on French and English lit. For a worldly, classics-influenced take on the art of style and gifting, read on…

Wives, kids, domestic partners: Curious what gifts and activities your Man of the Moment might enjoy this Father’s Day? (It’s June 15, by the way.) In order to discern the complex goings-on that occur behind a dad’s stoic visage, we went straight to the source, asking several real-life family men here at Nordstrom HQ to offer notes on their personal style and parenting style.

Keep reading for a few last-minute dad-isms from Justin Abbott, Senior Editor of Men’s Shop Daily and Pop-In @ Nordstrom—who couldn’t resist, after seeing how much fun fellow fathers Jeremy, Bob, Yaro and Justin M. had with their recent Dad’s Day posts.

Many specimens in the menswear pantheon are born of utilitarian necessity. Few become electrically charged with symbolic meaning through their decades of use and abuse.

The leather motorcycle jacket falls into both categories: assembled from logic and imbued with snarling attitude, thanks to being embraced by countless iconic antiheroes from Marlon Brando to The Ramones. No one knows this better than legendary leather-jacket manufacturer Schott NYC, whose founder, Irving Schott, invented the motorcycle jacket nearly 100 years ago.

Keep reading for our Q&A with Jason Schott (great-grandson of Irving and current Chief Operating Officer of the family business)—and to see the historical figures who have built Schott’s legacy by donning their incredible leather jackets over the years.

Not unlike Nordstrom, Schott NYC has been around—and has remained family-operated—for over 100 years.

Through the decades, founder Irving Schott evolved a Lower-East-Side basement operation with his brother into an international success—securing contracts with Harley Davidson and the US Military along the way. He invented the ‘Perfecto’ leather motorcycle jacket as well as the bomber jacket, among countless other innovations. And his family continues to set trends rather than follow them, all thanks to staying true to a standard of quality, integrity, and self-determination.

Four generations later, the good people at Schott NYC shared with us a few of the details that set a ‘Perfecto’ leather jacket apart from the pack—as much now as in 1928, when Irving Schott named the creation after his favorite Cuban cigar. Keep reading to learn more.

With Christmas right around the corner, we asked three male colleagues here at Nordstrom HQ to share what’s on their gift radar this year. Last up is Danny Mankin, our Lead Men’s Stylist—a man whose sneaker collection we envy almost as much as his interior-design skills. If this sounds like someone on your own holiday shopping list, continue reading to find the perfect gift.

Growing up in Jamaica, Queens—where dirt tracks are a rare sight, to say the least—a young Nigel Sylvester says few people supported his obsession with BMX bike riding. He doesn’t mind though, insisting it just gave him a thicker skin for criticism.

After getting his start pulling daredevil burnouts on Big Wheels, Sylvester soon graduated to two wheels—helped pioneer and popularize a unique East-Coast, in-city, free-form riding style that grinds on NYC concrete rather than launching off So-Cal clay—and despite (or perhaps because of) his alternative approach, has risen to the forefront of his sport.

We caught up with Sylvester to find out what every man can learn from a BMX master—like how to fail with dignity, sweat the small stuff, and follow your gut at all costs.

STICK WITH IT. “With BMX riding, you want to be the first one in your neighborhood, or even in the world, to land a trick. You’re going to fall down. It’s all about getting back up. I feel like those setbacks just help build character. If you’re determined enough, you’re going to get back up and do it again.”

LEARN NEW TRICKS. “I’m competitive by nature, mostly with myself. I always want to outdo myself and be better than yesterday. So I’m always looking at, how do I progress? How do I learn new tricks—on and off my bike? Be a better brother, better son, better person in general.”

KEEP IT PROFESSIONAL. “Being a pro BMX rider means that you ride on a professional level. You’re doing tricks on a professional level. And you conduct yourself in a professional manner off your bicycle, as well.”

VISUALIZE SUCCESS. “Bike riding, for me, is very mental. I like to think about what I’m doing, envision what I do before I do it. I want to make sure it looks good. Presentation is so important. The details are what separate the good from the great.”

MY TRAINING REGIMEN. “Riding is my training. I don’t go to the gym and life weights or whatever. I do some cardio, a bunch of stretching, push-ups, sit-ups, but mostly bike riding is the actual exercise and training. When I go out on a ride, let’s say I’m bunny-hopping. I’m lifting up my body weight, plus the weight of the bike—so that right there is 200-plus pounds every time—and I may do 100 bunny hops in a day.”

MIND & BODY. “Riding is a full-body exercise. You need your full body to go out and ride. As well as your mind—so it’s like [exercising] everything.”

FULL CIRCLE. “It was crazy for me, because the first time I saw the X Games on TV, Dave Mirra won. And I guess it kind of came full-circle for me when it was him who turned me professional. He signed me to his company at the age of 18. This is my childhood idol, and then he comes and starts off my professional bicycle career. I’ll never forget that.”

SEE WHAT HAPPENS. “The advice I give people is to follow your heart and do what you love. Don’t let anyone deter you from your dreams and your goals—because you already know what’s going to happen if you don’t do it. So you might as well find out what’s going to happen if you put your mind to it.”

GOING GLOBAL. “As professionals, we strive to be the best at what we do and to do things that stand the test of time. So if I do a trick here in New York that people in Japan or Beijing or Africa are going to go on YouTube, watch it, and then talk about it around the world, that’s an incredible feeling. There’s nothing better than going to a new country, and people are like, ‘I saw your video, and you did this trick, and it was awesome.’ You’re touching people all around the world.”

BLAZING A TRAIL. “Growing up in New York, we didn’t have many [BMX] competitions. New York City riders, our style is a little bit different. We’re more just about going out free-riding, filming video parts, and kind of just doing whatever feels right. That’s one of the best things about action sports—that you can be a contest rider or a video-part rider, and still be successful.”

IN THE ZONE. “I listen to music all the time. Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt, Lauryn Hill, Young Jeezy, Kanye West’s new album. Most of the time when I’m riding, I have my headphones in. Music helps me just zone in and block out all the other distractions around me—planes, ambulances driving by, people talking sh–. Music helps me just zone out and focus on the task at hand.”

NO PLACE LIKE HOME. “I wanted to do a video series that gave my fans a different perspective of my life. We did a series called Get Sylvester—we shot in Chicago, Barcelona, Dominican Republic…[But] there’s no feeling like coming back home. Go see my mom, see my friends, go hang out. It makes you appreciate the things that you have in life that you can’t buy.”

PROPER FOOTWEAR. “Sneakers—I got a lot of those. I probably have, in my house right now, maybe 300 pairs of sneakers. In New York, you pull up, one of the first things that a lady looks at is your sneakers. Yeah. Sneakers are important. Got to have a good sneaker game.”

MY MOST PRIZED POSSESSION. “My bicycle, first and foremost…I’m going to ride my bike until I can’t ride it any longer. BMX riding is such a big part of my life that I will never, ever take it for granted. I put my heart into it as much as I possibly can. I wake up thinking about it. I go to sleep thinking about it. It just makes me feel like nothing else on this earth can.”

Electronic-music aficionado or not, you’ve probably caught wind of this mysterious, helmet-clad, hype-generating duo known as Daft Punk as of late. Hedi Slimane of Saint Laurent Paris shot them for the new issue of Dazed & Confused (above)…Our friends at GQ managed to score an in-depth Q&A with the elusive hitmakers…And Spin has posted a virtual smorgasbord of articles, from an oral history of the Frenchmen’s first show on US soil to a retrospective of their 19 savviest samples (highlights range from Barry White to Barry Manilow).

The recent flood of Daft Punk buzz (leading up to the pair’s first new album in eight years, Random Access Memories) started about two months ago with brief snippets debuted during Saturday Night Live and at Coachella—like the one below, featuring Pharrell Williams and ’70s studio legend Nile Rodgers:

Next came a series of interviews that revealed not only the dream team of collaborators Daft Punk hand-picked for their new project, but also the return to analog equipment and old-school studio techniques they embraced—a bold departure from the electronic movement they helped birth almost two decades ago. (Our favorites are below; watch all eight episodes here.)

Then, yesterday, an official video from Daft Punk depicting “The Robots” in the flesh, unwrapping the first copy of their new record and cueing it up on the turntable in their trusty spaceship:

(Click the link above to visit Daft Punk’s site—then click the album cover to open iTunes, where you can stream the full album and pre-order prior to its May 21 release.)

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The Hedi Slimane-designed, sequined dinner jackets Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo wear in the pics abouve (yes, there are humans under there after all) are cool and all—but we tend to favor Daft Punk’s biker phase. Emulate their robo-moto look with one of our favorite leather jackets below—but as far as fully automated cyborg helmets go, you’ll have to look elsewhere.